Thursday, September 23, 2004

Reuters Violates its "Trust Principles"

I can barely stand it anymore...the media bias drives me crazy. If you're honest you can't deny how big media has tried to remove legitimacy of the war on terror by referring to what are clearly terrorists (Spain, Iraq, Russia, etc...) as anything (insurgents, freedom fighters, etc.) other than terrorists. Reuters seems to spin the description of every story even if its connection to this war on terror is dubious....although the connection I'm referring to this time may be closer than we think. I'm talking about the story Reuters ran today on Yusuf Islam. Who the F is Yusuf Islam? Well some time back Cat Stevens became a Muslim and is now known as Yusuf Islam. In Reuters story (http://news.myway.com/top/article/id/428618top09-23-2004::06:08reuters.html) they refer to Yusuf at "Stevens" 8 times including the title and say one time he is known as Yusuf Islam. WHAT? He calls himself Yusuf Islam so shouldn't they have called him that in the article while mentioning once "formerly known as Cat Stevens"? And of course there is just no reason for Mr. Islman to have been on a watch list right? Well, James Taranto makes some interesting points in his WSJ.com Best of the Web for Wednesday you should check out http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110005657

Oh, so back to Reuters....it doesn't take much research to find the obvious bias in what their news service puts out. I believe sugar coating or outright changing a descriptive label of an event or people to promote a certain political view is commonplace at Reuters thus making a joke out of their Editorial Policy found on their website which says "Reuters news operations are based on the company’s Trust Principles which stipulate that the integrity, independence and freedom from bias of Reuters must be upheld at all times. "

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